


The Search for Quynh

by lovetheboys



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: F/F, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-07
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:20:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27428548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovetheboys/pseuds/lovetheboys
Summary: Nile finds a breadcrumb that might lead her to Quynh.
Comments: 10
Kudos: 102





	The Search for Quynh

**Author's Note:**

> Rated for language and death and anger and forgiveness and other adult emotions.
> 
> Look, I’m sorry but as excited I am for the next movie, that epilogue makes _no fucking sense_. If they go with comics-ish cannon Quynh/Noriko has been out of the water the whole time, but then why would Nile and Booker in movie-verse still be dreaming about her under the water? And for her to be a coherent, independent person after 400+ years under the water in under six months? No fucking way. I’m happy they'll totally joss me but consider this an alternative epilogue to the movie.
> 
> If you want to hear my armchair-historian rambling about why I made the story choices I did, please read the end notes.
> 
> Thank you to @saintburns for the storyboarding when I got stuck. 
> 
> (First fic posted since 2013???!!! fuck)

_ Six Months After Merrick _

Nile found the story. Of course; she was the only one who knew what reddit was.

A call had been made for creepy or weird stories from fishermen — most had to do with unexpected fucking-big-fish. Those stories bothered her much more than they used to; she did not want to live out a Jonah and the whale situation with a creature that could swallow her whole. 

The post was a few years old, and long since abandoned. Nearing the end of the posts, one entry made her sit up, read it again, and remind herself to breathe. She quickly took a screencap and clicked on the user’s page. He was a frequent poster in his local reddit, the fifth largest city in Norway (her Google searches had gotten increasingly random in the last six months).

> Sorry, English is my third language! I was out fishing cod with my uncles one summer on the North Sea. We had only been out for a few days, but I got bored (I was 11) and swam. I stay near the boat because my uncles told me some porpoises had messed with their nets recently and they did not want me to be harassed by them. I wanted to see how far down I could go, when I hit a strange bubble. Lots of bubbles for a while (I did not have a watch) then they would stop. I went to the surface and looked at the place, but I drifted away from the boat and did not want to get lost at sea.
> 
> I guess there might have been some mammal that died down there, but it was really, really deep (I could not see the bottom). I know there are many wrecks with planes and ships in the North Sea, but what kind of machines will still work down there? My uncles had not said anything about new crashes or wrecks, so it had to be old. I never told anyone about it and could not find the place again, but it was the weirdest thing I have seen.

Nile wanted to vomit and celebrate and yell and scream. She did none of those things. 

She texted Booker.

*

She and Booker were the only two who dreamed of Quynh. Andy looked like she wanted to die when Quynh was mentioned, and when Nile woke up from her nightmares, Andy was conspicuously gone. This left Joe and Nicky to talk her down. It was also the best time to pump them for information.

“There has to be something you know that can help,” Nile said, the quiet desperation of the sleepless making her voice tight. 

Nicky shook his head. “It took years to track down the last living crew member of the ship that took Quynh away. We got what we could out of him, but it must’ve been 10 years before we tracked him down and by then….”

“Nicky befriended him,” Joe said. “At the pub. The man was half-dead from drink. Andy couldn’t get near him without violence, understandably. I was too brown for the small village where we found him, and Nicky did his best to jog his memory.”

“I got a partial name for the destination and how long the trip took,” Nicky said.

“We searched for 93 years,” Joe sighed. “Andy would drown herself, over and over trying to find Quynh.”

“We finally made her stop,” Nicky said. He saw the frown on Nile’s face, and he shook his head. “There was nothing we could do, a literal needle in a dark, murky haystack.”

Nile bit back her first three retorts about the advancements of technology and how they could’ve kept going, how could they just leave her there, did they  _ know  _ what it was like?

Joe told her kindly to try and get some sleep, and Nile knew that was all the information she would get out of them that night.

*

Did Booker share the same dreams? Had they changed over the years? He had been dreaming of drowning for 200 years. Quynh had been drowning for over 400.

*

Booker texted her back the next day.  _ What do you mean you might have a lead on Quynh? How? _

She sent him the story, and told him what she’d researched about the information.  _ Can we go find her? It’s at least a place to start! _

She waited for a reply. And waited. Joe and Nicky exchanged glances over her head the next few days. Andy noticed something was up and didn’t ask, just encouraged them all to spar. Nile was coached in fighting and if she hit a bit harder for a few days while she waited to hear back from Booker, well, maybe she was just getting better.

The bruises were novel to Andy (when Nile landed a hit), and they all reminded her to wear wraps to avoid breaking her hands.

*

_ Come to Edinburgh. I’ll meet you there. Two weeks. _

*

For three days she pestered Booker for more information. Either he was a champion at ignoring texts or he’d changed phones.

Copley handed her a new passport and train tickets from London to Edinburgh. “Enjoy your trip, Ms. Friedman,” he said. 

She flipped open the passport. “That the best you can come up with?” she demanded. “Nisi Friedman?”

“If it is similar enough to your own name, it helps with the transition to a new identity,” Copley said, his eyes far too kind.

Realization of her new reality hit her (again), and she scowled. “Thanks, I guess,” she mumbled. 

*

“I want to get out of here,” Nile said.

“Copley hasn’t found a new job yet,” Andy said. “Where do you want to go?”

“I don’t know,” Nile said, letting her desperation creep into her voice. “Thought I’d just go to the train station and see where I could get to.”

Andy nodded. “You should have enough money in your account for first-class and some nice hotels. Stay off cameras and out of tourist pictures,” she added, and left the room.

Joe eyed her. “Keep in contact,” he said. “Let us know how you’re doing.”

Nicky nodded his agreement. “If you go North, don’t mention Scotland to Andy,” he added. “That’s where she and Quynh were captured.”

She didn’t have to play at surprise. “What?” she said. “I thought you said they were captured in England?”

Nicky shrugged. “Same thing.” 

“I’ll try not to dredge up any bad memories for Andy,” Nile said, the lie bitter in her throat.

*

The train ride was fucking cool. Nile hung out a little with some college-age kids on their gap year. It was fun to feel like a kid again, even if she’d never been to college.  _ There’s time, _ she thought. Joe and Nicky had spoken idly of various studies they had done, medical, artistic, literary. She wondered between them how many degrees they had.

She wondered if Andy had ever gone to school. Nile couldn’t picture Andy in a lecture hall.

“What about you, Nisi?” Claudia asked. “What’re you doing? Where you going?”

_ Going to hunt down an imprisoned immortal with an exiled immortal and by the way I could jump off this train and it would hurt, but I’d be fine, no big. _

“I got out of the military and wanted to travel,” she said. “My mom thinks I’m nuts.”

“Mums don’t get it, that’s for sure,” Greg said and went off on a tangent complaining of parents and their lack of understanding.

_ My mom thinks I’m dead, _ Nile reminded herself, even as she laughed and nodded along with the others.

It was getting easier to pretend.

*

Booker met her at the Edinburgh station and she ducked away from the gap year group. She made sure they were gone before she went up to Booker.

“I don’t know whether to hug you or slap you,” she said. “Why the hell did you leave me on read for so long?”

He shook his head. “I was making arrangements,” he told her. “What does—”

Nile cut him off. “I’m so glad you were making arrangements,” she snapped. “You should’ve told me that.”

He sighed. It sounded exactly like how she remembered her own father’s tired sigh. “You can fill me in,” she said, and shoved one of her bags into his hands. 

*

They didn’t discuss it until they were in the rental car. “After the second world war, I decided to search for Quynh,” was  _ not _ how Nile expected Booker to begin.

“What?” she asked — she may have screeched a little but she thought she could be excused.

He started the car and left the car park. “I was a forger; I forged business papers and bank records, and art pieces to sell to fund the boat.”

“The boat,” Nile echoed faintly. 

“Many boats,” Booker admitted. “I’ve been a silent partner the whole time, but there’s been a new owner on the books about every 12 years or so.”

“So you just have some boat sweeping the entirety of the North Sea?” 

“It’s a legitimate salvage company,” he said. “A small one. There are divers, and the captain supervises the operation and retrievals. The owner runs the company for me, and reports any oddities they may find.”

“And the others don’t know about this?” Nile asked. “So you had lots of practice lying to them.”

Booker didn’t answer.

*

“Welcome to North Berwick, home of the North Berwick witch trials of 1590,” Booker said as they entered a town. He drove through the streets until he pulled up in front of a hotel that looked more like a castle.

They were in a double room. “Just one night didn’t seem worth a suite,” Booker said. 

Nile couldn’t argue with that. “I’m starving,” she said. “They got food here?”

Booker tossed her the menu. “Room service always takes forever. I know there’s a good kebab place nearby.”

“Kebab sounds great,” Nile said. “Get me whatever.” 

Booker saluted and was back out the door.

Nile showered, enjoying the luxury and the free shower cap. Having to wash blood out of her hair so often probably wasn’t good for it, and she wondered if she wouldn’t be better off just shaving her head like Jay. There were always wigs if she wanted to be in disguise, and it would grow back.

*

Booker came back carrying bags that radiated delicious spice scents. “We got lamb, beef, chicken, veggies.”

“Yes, please,” Nile said and grabbed a bit of everything. “Do we have a cover story?” Nile asked after a few minutes of eating.

“In the past, there have been clients who wanted to search for something specific, so it’s not unprecedented that we act on tips and requests.” Booker pointed at Nile and himself in turn.

“I’m making a request?” she asked.

“We work for an anonymous patron who wants us to find an artifact from the witch hunts,” Booker said. “There’s records of Quynh’s imprisonment, so it could be found by those interested enough to search for it.”

“Uh huh,” Nile said. “What is our role in this?”

“Retrieval specialists,” Booker said. “Acting on behalf of the patron to get what they want without them being directly involved or exposed.”

“And what do we do with the crew when we find a living woman at the bottom of the sea?”

Booker winced. “I’m working on it. Why do you think I put you off for two weeks?”

*

“He has a plan, but no follow-through,” Nile said to herself. Ranted, more like. 

Nile flashed to her last dream of Quynh, the absolute insane rage and pain that came through their weird connection. Nile laced her fingers behind her head, stretching the muscles in her chest and shoulders and breathed deep. She tried to put herself in Quynh’s place; she didn’t know that she’d have much humanity left.

The last thing Nile wanted to do was lock Quynh in another cage, but having an immortal warrior walking free in a world so unrecognizable to her made Nile want to curl up and hide. It would mean the end for a lot of mortals and definitely the end of the immortals.

*

Aside from the nightmares spurred on by Quynh, Nile had dreams of what would have happened to her if Andy hadn’t kidnapped her. “I retrieved you,” Andy corrected her more than once. 

She couldn’t imagine they’d keep her for long at the military hospital. She would’ve been carted off to Area 51 or deep into the bowels under the Pentagon. 

None of them could be caught by outsiders again.

*

Booker drove her to the docks. “You need to get comfortable driving on the left,” he told her. 

Nile rolled her eyes. “One problem at a time, Booker,” she said. She stared at the harbor. “That’s … a lot of water.”

“You going to be okay out there?”

Nile shrugged, but her eyes never left the gray blue horizon. “I’ve never been on a boat, except a sailing ship at dock in the harbor once for a school trip.”

“Not the same thing as being on a boat in the middle of the sea,” Booker said. 

“Nope,” Nile said. Then she steeled herself and got out of the car. She still waited for Booker to lead the way.

*

Booker boarded the boat after hailing the crew, shaking hands with a tall, white-haired man. “Mr. Lavigne, it’s a pleasure to meet you at last.”

“Please, call me Bastian,” Booker said. “Captain Knutsson, my associate Nisi Friedman.” He gestured at Nile, who shook the hand of the Captain. 

“Pleasure to be here,” Nile said.

“American?” the Captain asked, a little surprised. “Unusual to have Americans interested in the North Sea.”

“To be fair it’s not my interest, but the interest of my employer,” she said, smiling. “I was just telling Bastian here how I’ve never really been on a boat before, much less one like this.”

The Captain grinned, and clapped a companionable hand on her shoulder, pulling her lightly forward before letting go. “Then let’s introduce you to the crew. They’ll show you the ropes.”

*

The crew was small. There was Maura who ran the office portion of the business; the divers, Rabbie, Sigrun, and Gillian; and Danny, who was the resident archaeologist. Sigrun pulled double-duty as their marine biologist. “So we don’t unduly disturb wildlife in our search for treasure,” she explained. She had an almost unnoticeable accent that was not British; Nile didn’t want to appear the ignorant American and didn’t ask where she was from.

“Hope you don’t mind bunking up,” Gillian said. She reminded Nile so strongly of Dizzy before that first death that Nile had to stifle the urge to run. At least the accent was very different.

“Nah,” Nile said. “I’m used to it, I was in the Army.” The trained dislike of claiming a different branch was almost physical pain. “How many in a bunk?”

“Many as we need, really,” Gillian answered. “There’s five rooms and two bunks in a room. We can sleep more if people don’t mind sharing.” She grinned. “I don’t think we’ve ever had a full house before, at least not in my time.”

“How long have you been with the company?” Nile asked. Booker was doing his own mingling with the other crew members; Nile swore she saw a hint of pink on Maura’s cheeks as she stared at Booker. 

“Five years for me,” Gillian said. “Danny here has only been for one, and he was hired in the offseason so he’s still a greenie.”

Danny’s brown skin darkened over his cheekbones. “I only graduated university three years ago,” he squawked. “Do you know how hard it is to get field experience?”

Gillian grinned, which showed some laugh lines. “He hasn’t quite got used to the ribbing yet,” she said in an undertone to Nile.

“I heard the company changed hands recently?” Nile asked.

Gillian raised her eyebrows. “Been doing your research, haven’t you?” She shrugged. “One boss is same as another. Maura’s the new owner’s niece, took over for the last office manager, who went with the last boss when he sold.”

“I see,” Nile said. “Well, it’s my first time out on water like this. Any advice for a newbie?”

“Don’t worry about booting, almost everyone does when they’re acclimating,” Danny said. “Just try to do it over the railing or you’ll end up mopping it up, too.”

“Thanks,” Nile said, making a face. The last time she had vomited was when she stabbed Andy.

*

Booker woke despite Nile’s best efforts to keep her sobbing quiet. She heard him shifting on his bunk even as she tried very hard to concentrate on breathing with the music in her earbuds.

“Nile?” he asked, voice rough with sleep.

“I’m fine,” she snapped.

Booker sighed and sat up, rubbing his face. “No, you’re not,” he said.

“You would know,” Nile said.

Booker was silent long enough that Nile ripped the headphones out of her ears and stood up to slam her fist into the slim pad on her own bunk. “I keep thinking Gillian is my friend Dizzy. Different accent, so it helps when she talks but they look enough alike that it is  _ freaking me out _ .”

Booker squinted. “She was with you in Afghanistan?”

“She was with me when I died.”

“Ah,” Booker said.

“She.” Nile gulped air. “She looked at me like I was a  _ freak _ or, or evil or something. I wouldn’t have even been in that position if she hadn’t gotten distracted. Just wanted the glory of a good score. There was a man they wanted alive bleeding out on the floor and she was just looking at the stuff. I wouldn’t have  _ died _ if she had just been doing her  _ job  _ and—”

Booker stood and pulled Nile into a hug. She hadn’t seen him hug anyone else, and it took a moment for her to unfreeze enough to squeeze him back. She spent some time sobbing and trying to stifle it, anything to stop the tears. Eventually she realized Booker had pulled them both to sit on his bunk, and he was humming something that sounded like a lullabye almost under his breath.

Eventually the tears stopped and Nile sighed.

“You’re going to meet a lot of people in your life, Nile,” Booker said quietly, breaking the silence. “They will remind you of those you lost or had to leave behind. It’s tough, for a while. Sometimes it will feel as fresh as it does now, even if it’s been a hundred years since you saw them.”

“So this is another thing I just have to get used to?” Nile demanded. “Are there any upsides to this shit?”

Booker shook his head. “You’re asking the wrong immortal,” he said ruefully.

*

The information from the reddit story still gave them a huge portion of water to cover. The author of the story had not responded to any of Booker or Nile’s messages.

Booker had figured a fishing trawler could get around 100 miles in a day, and so that gave them an arc of around 200 miles out from Kristiansand, with a concentration on waters known to be good for cod fishing. Combined with the lore Joe, Nicky, and Andy remembered from the original ship’s crew members, it gave them someplace to start.

Booker and the captain had created a search grid that would allow them to sweep their whole search area with sonar in an efficient manner. It would take months to cover the whole area.

Nile stared out at the water. Quynh was under there somewhere.

If she thought about it too hard, the dichotomy of her current life was enough to make Nile question reality as she knew it. On the one hand, she was just a woman doing a job and hanging out on a boat in the middle of the sea with a crew of people. The close quarters and good-natured ribbing almost made it seem like she was back in basic.

On the other hand, they were searching for a woman who had been drowning for over 400 years.

*

They hit their first metal anomaly on their seventh day out. 

The captain was skeptical but as long as their patron was paying them and the company could keep whatever other scrap they found, he was fine with a wild goose chase.

The anomaly was partially buried but vaguely oblong.

It turned out to be the nose tip of a two-seater plane, probably from around 1960. 

Booker took Nile for her first night dive to discover that.

*

Being underwater was calming for Nile, even given the nightmares. It helped that she had oxygen.

The waters of the North Sea were murky, with particulates floating through the bright beam of lights they cast around them.

“Just be glad you’re not doing this in a diving bell,” Booker told her when they were back on the boat and putting their equipment away.

Add another thing to her list of offhand comments to research.

*

A few more weeks passed; more anomalies and more night dives to look before the others could. Nile wondered if Booker actually had a plan for if — when — they found Quynh.

*

_ Copley has a mission for us, but we have to move quickly. Are you able to get back to London by tomorrow? _

Nile stared at the message for a few long moments. If she chartered a helicopter, maybe she could get back to London by the next day. 

_ No can do _ , she wrote back. Hopefully Joe would be able to soften her words to something a bit nicer.  _ I have something going on here I can’t leave yet. _

_ Anything you need help with? _ Joe asked after several minutes.

_ No. Go do your thing, make sure Andy wears some damn armor. _

_ Good one _ , Joe wrote back.

*

It was the beginning of their seventh week at sea, toward the end of the working hours when another anomaly appeared at the edge of their sonar. “It’s deep, maybe too deep for our diving equipment,” Rabbie, the sonar tech explained. “We’re hovering near the south-western part of the Norwegian Trench, which can be over 700 meters deep in places.”

“We’ll check it out first thing in the morning,” the Captain said, yawning.

Booker nodded in agreement. “It’s almost dinner time, and I don’t want to miss Danny’s cooking,” he said. He made eye contact with Nile, and indicated another of their night forays. She nodded.

*

The first time Nile swam through a stream of bubbles, she wondered if it was Quynh. That time and all the times after it had been playful whales blowing bubbles from a several meters down in the water. 

The giant whale appearing through the murky water was enough to scare Nile into retreating. How did anything that huge move so quietly and unseen?

That night, the bubbles Nile swam through came with the faint sound of screaming. Until it all stopped.

*

The light would hurt her eyes; breaking through the remains of the metal would probably injure her; the needle and drugs to calm her and restraints to keep her from killing them would frighten her; the oxygen intake in her mouth would be foreign; and finally when they were close enough to the surface not to give her the bends, the prick of the needle to deliver the knock-out drugs to keep her from waking the entire crew would be strange.

Nile wondered how long it would take Quynh to realize she wasn’t drowning any more.

*

They got Quynh onto the boat. She was a living skeleton, kept alive only by her own immortality. They dried her and dressed her in what looked like a hospital gown, trying not to break her and cause more harm than necessary. “What do we do with her?” Nile hissed.

“Down to the hold,” Booker said.

They carried Quynh, upright between them, down the steep and narrow stairs into the cargo area. Booker moved them to the far end of the cargo area and let Nile take Quynh’s negligible weight.

He touched something and a bank of shelves built into the wall swung open to reveal a room. “What the fuck, Book,” Nile said under the noise of the engine.

Inside the room was a hospital bed with restraints, and Nile had flashbacks to the Merrick lab. “What the  _ fuck _ , Booker,” she repeated. The sounds from the engines went quiet when she stepped into the room, and completely silent when Booker closed the door behind them.

Nile took stock of the room. There was a locking metal cabinet with vials and pre-prepared bags of IV solution. There was a chair bolted to the floor, and weird foam lining the walls.

“How many watch lists is Bastian Lavigne on after this?” Nile demanded as she and Booker got Quynh into the bed and strapped her in.

“I don’t even want to know,” Booker said. “I hired a very discrete builder to make this room for me,” Booker told her. 

Nile hummed in response. “We should probably have Copley look into him.”

“I already tipped him off,” Booker said.

“So we just keep her in here?” Nile demanded, then went silent as Booker began to insert IV lines into her with what looked like practiced hands. “Where did you learn that?” she demanded.

“I worked with field medics in WWII,” Booker said quietly. “I studied nursing back home. I try to stay somewhat current.”

“Huh,” Nile said. 

*

The dive team retrieved the metal coffin the next day. It emerged from the water, hauled carefully up with the crane affixed to the boat’s stern. Nile ducked away to check on Quynh. She talked while she stood guard, though she doubted that Quynh would understand modern English that well, it was comforting for Nile to not sit in silence.

While Booker would handle the drugs keeping her asleep, he and Nile would switch off watching over Quynh. The restraints stayed on — remembering Joe’s words about Quynh’s fighting prowess ( _ “She was a pit viper in a fight _ .”) she thought the precaution justified.

*

Booker shooed her to the upper deck to celebrate the retrieval with the rest of the crew and avoid suspicion. “There she is!” Gillian called when Nile came up to the galley. She shoved a flute of champagne into Nile’s hand when she joined her, Danny and Sigrun.

“I was just informing our client of our success, and our imminent return to shore,” Nile said, saluting and then sipping the drink. “They are very happy it was found; this apparently isn’t the first try to locate it.”

“We are very good,” Gillian agreed. She tossed her arm in a gesture that encompassed the whole of the galley. “Good crew, good boss, good Captain, good boat.” Gillian was tipsy as fuck, making her accent even thicker.

“It’s a fascinating artifact,” Danny said. “Almost a proto-Iron Maiden in form but without the torturous spikes. An effective prison for an unfortunate accused witch,” he added. 

Sigrun frowned. “It is highly unusual that anything under the water that long be that free from plant or barnacle growth.”

Danny nodded. “Yes, I thought that was odd as well, perhaps it’s a particular alloy that is unpleasant or toxic to underwater life?”

“And where are the poor broad’s bones?” Rabbie asked, inserting himself into the conversation and putting one arm around Danny’s shoulders and pressing close to the archaeologist.

Danny frowned and ducked out from under his arm. “There are no more bones to be found in open areas on the Titanic, which sank a century ago,” he said, glaring at Rabbie. “This was over four hundred years ago and subjected to current movement.”

Rabbie shuffled his feet and made a scoffing sound. “Just wondering if we needed to have a proper burial is all,” he mumbled.

“Her burial at sea was long ago,” Danny said, and walked away.

Sigrun elbowed Rabbie. “Nice job,” she said, and also moved to a different group.

“Rab,” Gillian sighed, “why don’t you just ask him out instead of whatever it is you’re trying to do there?”

Nile took another drink of her champagne — she hadn’t missed the signs over the last month but hadn’t thought it her place to say anything.

Rabbie made a face. “Don’t seem likely he’s into me. Might not even be into blokes,” he added.

Nile shrugged. “Never know till you try,” she said.

“Yeah, life’s short man, and we’re headed back to Berwick for a while,” Gillian said. Nile felt her smile freeze in place.  _ Life was short _ , she thought.  _ Not anymore _ . 

She downed the rest of her champagne.

*

“How do you do it?” Nile asked. Booker looked away from Quynh with his eyebrows raised. “I mean, how do you interact with normal people?”

Booker laughed. “I think you do a pretty good job,” he said.

“I guess,” Nile said. She idly scuffed the metal floor with the toe of her boot — the same foot she had  _ shot herself through _ a few months ago. “It’ll seem fine, then I’ll remember something or they’ll say something and I get up in my head again.”

“I don’t know, Nile,” Booker sighed. “If you want a playbook for how to blend with normal people as an immortal you’re going to have to write it yourself.”

“Fuck,” Nile said. Booker saluted her with his flask, then handed it over to her for a swig.

*

The boat was back in North Berwick the next evening. It was a small mercy; it wasn’t a large boat, and Nile wasn’t sure their ruse would last long if they’d had an extended sea voyage.

The crew was given leave and gave Booker and Nile varying levels of fond farewells before leaving, including Captain Knutsson. Maura volunteered to stay with the boat, citing some paperwork she had to finish for the expedition. The look she gave Booker strongly implied that she would accept his company while doing that paperwork. 

Nile nudged him. “We need to distract her,” Nile said. 

“I’ll bring her some whiskey,” Booker said.

“Is that some weird French euphemism?” Nile said. The face Booker made in response reminded Nile of the  _ look _ her brother would shoot her when she teased him about his crushes; embarrassed and wishing she would stop talking. She bit back her laughter as he slunk away.

*

Copley showed up around midnight, approaching the gangplank with caution. “I have a transport van that should accommodate the lady until we can get her to her destination.”

“What is the destination?” Nile asked.

Copley smiled sadly. “My home still has the facilities I put in place during my wife’s illness,” he said. “I believe they will suit Ms. Quynh until they’re not needed.”

Nile straightened. “Thank you,” she said. She gestured for Copley to follow her and motioned him to be quiet. “Booker is distracting—”

“I’m here,” Booker said, and Nile stifled a scream. 

She glared. “What about Maura?”

Booker shrugged. “I plied her with drink and left her passed out in the lounge,” he said. “I covered her with a blanket.”

Copley nodded. “I looped every security camera I could find in the harbor, including several on the boats nearby,” he said. 

Booker and Nile carefully carried Quynh, while Copley looked away. Nile hadn’t thought how much the situation would echo his wife’s last days, and she was sorry for the reminder.

*

They switched off during their drive back to Copley’s house near London, and Nile grew more comfortable driving on the left side of the road.

“How long will we keep her unconscious?” Nile asked.

“We need to get her body into a healthier state before waking her,” Copley said.

Booker shrugged philosophically. “That shouldn’t take long, as long as we feed her. I starved to death a couple times in Russia, but once I could access food again my healing bounced me back.”

“You  _ starved to death _ ?” Nile demanded.

“Many of us did,” Booker said. “I came back.”

“Sounds rather unpleasant,” Copley said after a moment; a masterful understatement.

*

The discrete nurses Copley hired to care for Quynh didn’t ask questions, though Nile was sure Copley had a cover story prepared. For the first few days, the nurses kept Quynh in a medically-induced coma with a high-calorie diet, and Nile and Booker kept watch over her, talked with her.

Some days later, Nile studied Booker when they both ran out of things to say to Quynh. “You look better, Book,” she said. “Are you sleeping more?”

Booker visibly bit his cheek, and stared at Quynh in a mournful way. The bags under his eyes had faded but he still reminded her of a sad-eyed basset hound at times. “I am,” he said. “You know, I wish I could say that I was looking for her because she needed to be freed.” He scrubbed a hand over his face and sat back in his chair, distancing himself from both Quynh and Nile. “That’s the good reason for doing a good thing. But selfishly, I just needed the dreams to stop.” The last few words came out with remembered desperation cracking through.

Nile had the dreams for less than a year and she had felt more tired than she had ever in her life. She had thought it was just a side-effect of her new super-healing, but it hadn’t gone away even weeks after she had fully recovered. Being able to sleep through the night without being terrified out of sleep was making it fade.

“I’m not sure how much your intent matters here,” Nile said. “Doing good for selfish reasons is still good.”

“It just doesn’t feel as good,” Booker sighed.

*

“You will tell the others?” Copley asked on their fourth day in his home.

Nile was silent for too long. “Yes, but I’m scared.”

Copley nodded. “Well, they checked in from Asunción yesterday. It will be another few days before they return.”

“There should be someone here who can speak to her when she wakes up,” Nile said.

Copley nodded. “I’ll have them brought here when they arrive at the airport,” he said. “We’ll have plenty of warning before they arrive,” he added to Booker.

“I won’t be here,” Booker said. He shook his head when Nile protested. “It’s all right, Nile. A hundred years is a small price to pay for what I did.” He patted her hand. “I’ll be fine.”

“You going to spend all hundred years drunk?” Nile asked, half curious and half accusatory.

“I don’t know,” Booker said. He turned to leave Quynh’s room, but stopped. Over his shoulder he said, “Stopping the dreams … it’s helped.” 

*

Booker left a day before the rest of the team arrived back in England. Nile wasn’t planning on lying to them, but Booker didn’t need to catch more flak because she called him.

“Nile, you’re back!” Joe exclaimed, and promptly pulled her into an enthusiastic hug. Nicky was a little more subdued but his hug was longer. Andy walked with her for a few steps, arm around Nile’s shoulder before releasing her with a squeeze. 

“How was the job?” Nile asked, hating herself for delaying.

“Nothing big,” Joe said and winked. “Just a few less bad guys in the world.”

Everyone acquired drinks from Copley and were apparently settling in to give their play-by-play of the job when Copley looked at Nile.

It was like the time in basic where she led a team exercise and had to explain to her commanders how and why they had failed at every objective. She did now what she’d done then: raised her chin and began to recite the facts. No excuses.

“I read something online that made me think of Quynh,” she began.

Andy looked like Nile had reached out and slapped her.

“I called Booker,” Nile continued. Joe’s eyes abruptly went from sad to furious, and she saw Nicky hold onto Joe’s arm. “He’s been running a salvage operation in the North Sea since the end of World War II, so he had what we needed to follow up on the possible lead.”

She explained about the boat, and sonar, and how she and Booker would go out at night to investigate any anomalies before the crew could.

Andy got up to pace while Nile spoke. Her eyes stayed on Nile even when the tears began to fall. 

“We found her,” Nile finished, her voice finally breaking. She couldn’t look away from Andy’s fierce, tear-filled glare. 

Nicky and Joe looked at Andy, too, holding their breath.

“Where?” Andy said.

*

When the door opened and Andy saw Quynh, she made a  _ sound  _ and crawled onto the bed with the unconscious woman. 

If Nile lived to be as old as Andy she wasn’t certain she could put words to the anguish behind that sound.

*

They set a chair outside the door to stand guard while giving Andy the illusion of privacy. Nile took first watch so Joe and Nicky could report on their job to Copley.

Andy cried. Then she talked to Quynh, and Nile had no idea what language she was speaking. The sounds soothed Nile into half-dozing in her chair.

Joe shook her shoulder. “How long has she been talking?” Joe asked Nile. 

Nile glanced at her phone. “About an hour and a half,” she said.

Joe pulled back from the door. “She is telling Quynh about our search for her,” he said to Nicky.

“Copley showed us where she was found,” Nicky said, staring into the distance. “We never thought they would hold her for so long into the voyage.”

Joe pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. “We weren’t even close,” he groaned. “The furthest we managed to search was little more than a hundred miles from shore.”

“It was almost a year before we could begin to search for her,” Nicky said. “We had to dig Andy out before we could even start to search for Quynh.”

“Wait, what?” Nile asked.

Nicky’s mouth pulled into a deep frown. “When they couldn’t kill Andy and Quynh, they decided to permanently separate and imprison them. Quynh went into the water. Andy went under the ground.”

*

Some time later, Joe was able to coax Andy into a little food and water, then she curled up next to Quynh and slept.

*

Nicky and Joe stood between Andy and Quynh when they finally disconnected the tubes and IV lines and let her wake up. If she was going to kill someone it should be one who could come back.

Her first conscious breath of air was a scream.

Quynh eventually realized she wasn’t underwater. She froze while her eyes darted around the room. She curled in on herself slowly as she took in the unfamiliar surroundings.

She saw Joe and Nicky and her eyebrows drew together. She saw Nile and her eyes narrowed in suspicion.

Quynh saw Andy and began to cry.

*

Because of the language barrier, Nile and Copley couldn’t communicate with Quynh. She didn’t speak much, just listened to Joe and Nicky as they told her about what she had missed.

She didn’t speak to Andy. 

When Andy tried to reach out, Quynh hunched away.

Nile had been afraid the rage she’d felt through the dreams would lead Quynh to try to kill Andy. Now she thought Andy might prefer that response.

Less than thirty minutes after Quynh awoke, Andy left the room. Quynh’s eyes followed her once her back was turned. Nile followed, called out to Andy, and the other woman turned and swung at Nile. It was clumsy, and that more than anything scared Nile, who ducked the blow without thinking.

“Whoa, Andy,” she said, hands up in front of her.

“She won’t look at me, she won’t talk to me,” Andy said, low and shaking. 

“She just woke up,” Nile said soothingly. “Give her time.”

“I don’t have  _ time _ !” Andy turned, and left the house.

*

She returned two hours later with bags and bags of takeout food, and gestured for Nile to help her bring in more. In Copley’s spacious kitchen, Nile stared at the dizzying array of food. “Andy this is going to go bad before we can eat it all,” she said.

“Quynh could always eat and she needs the calories,” Andy said, shoveling rice onto a large plate with fried rolls and some kind of meat and sauce that smelled divine. “I drove into London and found the most hole-in-the-wall, traditionally-run Vietnamese restaurant I could. I hope it reminds her of happier times.”

Nile frowned at Andy. “Andy,” she began, but the other woman held up her hand.

“I’ll be fine,” she said. “If she never speaks to me again as long as I live—” She stopped, took a deep breath and let it out shakily. “She’s out of the water and that is all that matters. And I have you to thank. And Booker,” she added. 

Nile shook her head. “I had good timing,” she said. “I lucked into information that it was literally impossible for you to get any other way. Andy,” she added, stepping into the other woman’s space and putting her hand on Andy’s shoulder. “You got bad intel and that’s not your fault.”

“I could’ve kept looking,” Andy said. “Fuck,  _ Booker _ searched better than I did.”

“He wasn’t buried alive, or relying entirely on the word of people who would throw a woman overboard in a coffin. He had superior technology, and he had professionals to help, and he  _ didn’t find her _ for over 70 years,” Nile said.

Andy shook her head, and the tears were gathering in her eyes again. “I could have done more, should’ve done more,” she said. “I left her, Nile,” she said. “Nothing can ever fix what she went through because  _ I left her _ .”

Nile watched her carry the overfull plate carefully out of the kitchen. She wondered if Andy would forgive herself before she died.

*

Andy had brought the plate in and then left when Quynh wouldn’t look her way at all. 

Quynh liked the food. “She says it doesn’t taste quite right, though,” Joe said, and continued talking to Quynh. 

Nicky translated for Nile’s benefit. “All food tastes a bit different now, but some things have gotten very good with passing time. It’s not all bad.”

While Quynh ate with enthusiasm, she would stop if there was an unfamiliar sound. Nile noted the medical equipment had been taken out, and neither Joe nor Nicky seemed to have their phones.

“Have you told her what year it is?” Nile asked.

Nicky shook his head. “She knows she was under the water for a long time, but we haven’t told her more than that. But she can see things are very different.”

She looked over at Quynh to find the other woman regarding her steadily. She raised her hand and waved, unsure exactly how to address this woman who had lived in her nightmares for so long. “Hi,” she said. “I’m Nile. Maybe you remember me from under the water?”

She trusted Joe to translate her words. Quynh spoke rapidly back. “You wore face coverings, and there was another one. Where is the other one?”

Nile bit her lip. “He left. After we got you here.”

“He is like us?” Quynh asked.

Nicky nodded. “He is.”

Joe sounded shocked when he translated Quynh’s next words: “I dream of him.”

*

It turned out that while Booker had met Quynh, she had not yet met him.

*

Joe abandoned his translating duties to say, “We are not calling that asshole back.” Joe wasn’t yelling-mad at Booker anymore, but he would not refer to him by name.

Nicky translated, then kept talking. Joe turned and looked at Quynh when she responded, shock and an almost betrayed expression in his eyes. Nile cleared her throat pointedly.

“He did not betray me,” Quynh said. “He found me. I want to see him.”

Nicky shook his head and left the room. Joe said something to Quynh, and Quynh said something back louder. Nile went after Nicky to check on him, and found him outside the sick room. “What—” she said.

“Joe is trying to tell her that we could’ve ended up like her, except with people cutting bits of us out every few hours,” Nicky said. Nile shook her head, and tried to interrupt him, but he plowed on, “Quynh said that we are fine and obviously Booker isn’t that good at betraying us.”

“Nicky,” Nile interrupted. “Are you all right?”

He shook his head and turned away. He was a mass of tension from his jaw to his hands, which clenched and unclenched. “No,” he said. “We made Andy stop looking.”

Nile sighed, and closed her eyes. It was a wonder they hadn’t all died of guilt hundreds of years ago.

*

Quynh insisted on meeting Booker.

*

Andy finally made the decision for all of them. “Just fucking call him,” she said, throwing her phone at Nile. “If she wants to see him she should.”

“She still doesn’t know everything,” Nile said.

Andy nodded. “Then let’s show her everything.”

*

Quynh stood, barely blinking, in front of Copley’s wall. She stared for hours, Nicky or Joe at her elbow to translate whatever they could for her. 

Nile had been caught by it more than once herself, staring at the wall, following point to point. Watching Quynh trace the strings and stare at the papers, at the photos, was almost as fascinating as looking at the board herself. 

*

Andy left again, this time to go clothes shopping for Quynh. She came back with bags and bags of clothes. “She’ll like this, she always got cold if we were anywhere away from the equator.” 

Nile kept an eye on that bag. When Quynh was sorting through the clothes, making faces at various fabrics, she got a soft smile on her face when she pulled out a scarlet coat. She felt the outside, what looked like wool, and put it around her shoulders. “This is a good coat,” she said, while Joe smiled. 

“Andy - Andromache - picked that out for you,” Nile said. Quynh lost her smile when she heard Andy’s name, but nodded even while she scowled.

“Booker will be here soon,” Copley said. “He’s just getting a taxi.”

“Great,” Nile said. She was getting very tired of not being able to communicate with Quynh. Having to have Joe or Nicky around to translate made it very hard to have the discussions she wanted to have with the other woman.

*

Joe made himself scarce when Booker arrived. Nicky scowled at the Frenchman, but stood by to do his translating duty.

Until Booker came in and Quynh began rattling off something that almost sounded French to Nile, was almost something she could understand. Booker looked a little confused, then hesitantly spoke back.

It would do. Nicky frowned harder and excused himself.

“Look, all I have is some basic French,” Nile said in English. “Book, can you translate for us?”

Booker looked at Quynh, who shrugged. “I can try,” he said. 

None of them sat. Instead they stood in a strange triangle like a standoff. “Look, you betrayed us, and they chose to exile you,” Nile said. Then she gestured at Quynh so Booker would translate her words.

He sighed and did so. Quynh nodded.

“Quynh,” she said, facing the woman directly and pronouncing her name like Andy did. “They betrayed you. I say you exile them.”

Booker finished translating almost as an afterthought as he stared at Nile. “You,” she said, pointing a finger right in his face. “Help Quynh adjust to the 21st century. Maybe you can help each other along the way.” She added the last in French, and frowned when Booker translated it anyway.

Quynh nodded slowly. Not a nod of agreement, just acknowledgement.

“Does she know about Andy?” Booker asked. “That she won’t—”

Nile widened her eyes. “I don’t think so,” she said. “You know I’d call you if something happened to Andy.”

Quynh said something rapidly and Nile just caught Andy’s full name. “What are you saying about Andy?” she asked.

Booker and Nile looked at each other for a long time, silently debating back and forth, gesturing wordlessly. Nile didn’t want to be the one to announce the sudden mortality of Andromache the Scythian.

Andy appeared in the open doorway, rattling off more of that not-French. Nile didn’t need Booker to translate Andy’s words; the look on Quynh’s face — like she’d just suffered a new death blow — told her what Andy said.

*

The two women stared at each other for a very long time. Booker pushed Nile out of the room and closed the door behind them.

Nile was braced and waiting for the sounds of fighting, or yelling, or crying. Nothing came.

*

It was getting dark when Andy opened the door again and gestured them inside. Joe and Nicky had joined them waiting at the top of the stairs, pointedly freezing Booker out of any attempts at conversation.

Andy gestured them all in, made a gesture at Booker to do the translating while she spoke. “Quynh told me what you proposed, Nile,” she said. If this had been a month ago Andy might have laughed along with her smile. “Mutual exile. It’s elegant.”

Andy turned to look at Booker for the first time since he came back. “Booker, I can never thank you enough for finding Quynh,” Andy said, her voice low and shaking with her intensity. “But I’m not sure we’re ready to forgive you for Merrick yet, and Quynh is not ready to forgive us,” Andy said, gesturing to herself, Joe, and Nicky. She finished, “Quynh needs to learn the world, and Booker is a good guide. They’ll work well together.”

Booker smiled crookedly at Quynh. She pursed her lips in a small smile back to him.

*

They agreed that Andy, Joe, and Nicky would stay away from Quynh and Booker. Nile would be free to go between the groups. She wouldn’t report on anyone else’s activities unless she judged it relevant. “And none of us will pry,” Andy promised pointedly staring everyone in the face.

Nile wasn’t sure she liked playing the peacekeeper role. Add that to the list of things she just had to deal with, at least for the next century or so.

*

“You have my number, Book,” Nile said. “We’ll keep in touch, and I’ll swing by when I can. I have to give Quynh a 20th century perspective.”

Book nodded. “Copley got us a rustic place where I can introduce her to the modern world slowly.”

Nile nodded. “I’ll work on my French. I’m getting tired of being the one who’s only fluent in English.”

“Nile,” Quynh said, clearly but with an accent that was unplaceable in a modern world. “Merci,” she said, and even Nile understood that. 

“Je vous en prie,” she said. There was a slight hesitation, then Quynh hugged Nile, quick and hard. 

“À bientôt,” Booker said, hugging Nile warmly. She patted his back. She would see them both again soon, she’d make sure of it.

*

“We’ll get out of your hair now, Copley,” Nile said. “Thanks for playing host.”

“A woman lost beneath the waves for hundreds of years,” Copley said in that philosophical way he had. “I’m privileged to see the resolution to that part of her story.”

Nile stopped and stared at him. “You good, man?” she asked. It had to be hard, watching people recover from something so dire when the person he loved most in the world had died.

He chuckled and shook his head. “No. But who is, really,” he said.

“What do spooks do who need therapy?” Nile asked.

“American spooks? Suffer, mostly,” Copley said. “Because I also have British citizenship, I see a therapist that has a very high security clearance.”

“Probably wouldn’t work for that lot, huh?” Nile asked, gesturing broadly at The Wall.

That did surprise a guffaw out of Copley. “No, I’m afraid not. Even with someone as discrete as therapists are supposed to be, it would be a great risk.”

“They have to work this out, somehow,” Nile said. “As their own history shows, they’re  _ not good  _ at that.”

“Indeed.” He was silent for a while. “I will see what I can find out, Ms. Freeman.”

“Thank you, Mr. Copley,” Nile said. She saluted as she walked out the door. At least she’d given him a laugh.

*

In a semi-abandoned country house 15 miles from the French Meditteranean coast, Booker introduced Quynh to the 21st century, and filled her in on all the best and worst from the centuries she had missed.

**Author's Note:**

> The movie timeline doesn’t really make sense. In the movie Nicky says "500 years drowning" so maybe that's just their rounding-up hyperbole, but in the Netflix extra (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khCUVWqW9BU) they try to say that Andy and Quynh were captured and sent into the water around 1750. Which, according to my math is ~270 years from movie time. Also 1750 is generally the end of the witch hunts in Europe so unless she went in the water around the colonies it should be earlier.
> 
> I did a quick search for some famous English witch trials, and I tried to find one on the eastern coast of England so the area to search wasn’t the entire ocean. And I found the North Berwick Witch Trials from 1590-91 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Berwick_witch_trials). North Berwick is in Scotland, and was a shipping port for the most part, and small. According to the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica, North Berwick was “once a port of some importance it dwindled to a fishing hamlet”. So I’m going to posit that it was a moderately busy port, where they had some ships moving between Scotland/England and mainland Europe.
> 
> They tried to search the water. But the North Sea is large, it’s cold, and it’s murky. (https://youtu.be/jwONMHfxpMA) ← in that video which looks like pretty good diving conditions, visibility looks like 20 feet MAXIMUM. That’s hard. There’s 222,009 square miles to search. Even immortals couldn’t do it.
> 
> I have Nicky being flippant about calling it England because that was during all the back and forth running of crowns between Scotland and England, and quite frankly Nicky had other things to think about while they were searching for Quynh than who was currently reigning. Of course, I’m sure if you said something about “Genoese” and “Italian” being the same he would have some WORDS for you... Our favorite characters are not immune from hypocrisy.
> 
> Moving on… The Netflix extra movie says Andy was "rescued before the same fate could befall [her]" but I'm positing a different fate: buried alive. Why would they do the same thing twice? The whole point was to separate them. So I figure instead of also trying to throw Andy into the ocean, they would’ve buried her alive. Since there is less land than water, it would’ve been easier for Nicky and Joe to find Andy and get her out, and she’s obviously fine so that’s not this story anyway. 
> 
> The iron coffin probably should have eroded away before 400+ years had gone by, at least enough that if Quynh could gather her wits between dying she might’ve been able to fight her way out. But how on earth would she ever be able to calm down enough between resurrections to make any sense of her surroundings anyway?
> 
> The Reddit thing: I’m a junkie for reading all those weird ask stories on Reddit. And some of the ones that get added after the thread is popular are pretty interesting. The only way they’d be able to have any ideas of where to search for Quynh was if some tidbit of information that wasn’t even significant to anyone else happened to find their ears. So *hand wave* random reddit user posts obscure weird story that is largely ignored until one of our Imortals is bored out of her gourd and stumbles upon it.
> 
> The first part of this that came to me was actually that Booker had probably been searching for Quynh on the sly for many years. He wasn’t much of a soldier but I imagine he took part somehow in the world wars, and he would’ve seen sonar technology progress. And he would’ve been inspired by countless sleepless nights to search for her, and also to keep it quiet because of the awful expression on Andy’s face whenever Quynh and Andy’s failure as a leader/love is brought up. Also Nicky and Joe probably told Booker to drop it many times, telling him how fruitless it was, so Booker kept it from them.
> 
> This was originally going to be a Booker fic, and he would just get lucky and finally find Quynh. But this turned out to be Nile’s story, which turned out awesome (if I do say so myself!).
> 
> Booker and Nile stay at this hotel (https://marine-hotel.co.uk/) in North Berwick, because I spent far too long on Google Maps for all my research.
> 
> The not-French that Quynh speaks is Middle French, which was spoken between the 14th and 17th centuries. It’s probably close enough that Booker, a native and much older French speaker might be able to glean it than Nile.
> 
> So if you still have questions about why I did something, please feel free to ask. It might also be a mistake because I am not immune to errors!


End file.
